This article was downloaded by: [University College London] On: 25 August 2015, At: 09:40 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG Journal of Architectural Education Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjae20 Interdisciplinary Reflections and Deflections of Histories of the Scientific Revolution in Alberto Pérez-Gómez's Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science Stylianos Giamarelosa a Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Published online: 06 Mar 2015. Click for updates To cite this article: Stylianos Giamarelos (2015) Interdisciplinary Reflections and Deflections of Histories of the Scientific Revolution in Alberto Pérez-Gómez's Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, Journal of Architectural Education, 69:1, 17-27, DOI: 10.1080/10464883.2015.987069 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10464883.2015.987069 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. 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The moral rights of the Alberto Pérez-Gómez’s Architecture named author have been asserted. and the Crisis of Modern Science Stylianos Giamarelos Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL Alberto Pérez-Gómez’s 1983 Architecture and the instigated by the gradual rise of positiv- ism, around the 1970s. At the moment Crisis of Modern Science is used here as a vehicle for when a new wave of positivism haunts exploring the behavior of disciplinary boundaries contemporary architectural theories of parametricism, while other manifesta- in the context of crisis both historically and tions of crisis loom large (from the theoretically. Responding to his contemporaneous ecological to the epistemological plane), the act of revisiting Alberto Pérez- architectural crisis of the 1970s instigated by the rise Gómez’s 1983 Architecture and the Crisis of positivism, Pérez-Gómez uses Alexandre Koyré’s of Modern Science as a historical case study is expected to lead to an essential history of the scientific revolution as a mirror to reopening of lines of interdisciplinary reflect the historical developments of architectural inquiry for the present condition. theory upon it. Although effectively circumscribed, Architecture and the Crisis of his deliberate exposure to an interdisciplinary Modern Science in the Historical Context of the Architectural Crisis history nonetheless contributes to the opening up of the 1970s of a much richer constellation of perspectives that Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science has certainly been a milestone illuminate the nature of the disciplinary crisis he in Pérez-Gómez’s academic career. was trying to negotiate. These in turn open up new For instance, it was largely thanks to its original publication in Spanish in lines of interdisciplinary inquiry for the present 1980, titled La genesis y superacion del condition and the new wave of positivism that funcionalismo en arquitectura (Genesis and overcoming of functionalism haunts contemporary theories of parametricism in a in architecture), that he became a novel moment of crisis. fellow of the Mexican Academy of Architecture, an honor granted for Downloaded by [University College London] at 09:40 25 August 2015 While disciplinary accounts of crisis thus blur their vulnerable boundar- his “outstanding contributions in tend to portray it as a strictly “inter- ies, opening up alternative lines the field of architectural theory.” nal” affair in the history of modern of inquiry that in turn enrich our Shortly afterward, the Society of professions, in this article, I opt to vocational understandings. Often Architectural Historians character- treat moments of crisis precisely instigating both reflection and ized the 1983 publication of the book as occasions for vocational cracks inquiry, moments of crisis thus in English as “the most distinguished into interdisciplinarity. Unbound acquire both historical interest and work of scholarship in the history by artificially imposed disciplinary theoretical implications for the of architecture published in North boundaries, phenomena of crisis present. America between Nov. 1, 1981 to Oct. can therefore be understood in their Those broader questions relat- 31, 1983,” granting its author the increased complexity as varying ing to the behavior of disciplinary Alice Davies Hitchcock Book Award. manifestations of common historical boundaries in the context of crisis can The wider disciplinary recognition shifts. By exposing the only rela- be both historically and theoretically implicit in these institutional asser- tive autonomy of each disciplinary elucidated by revisiting one of the most tions may be better understood today field, these moments of uncertainty recent moments of disciplinary crisis, when the book is situated within the JAE 69:1 17 of Mexico, 1971) to “The Meaning of other’s texts, serve here as a useful crys- Geometry in Late 18th Century French tallization of the debates of the period. Architecture” (MA thesis, University This is precisely the broader context of of Essex, 1975), and from there on to British architectural discourse in which “The Use of Geometry and Number in the University of Essex MA program is Architectural Theory: From Symbols historically situated. But while Jencks, of Reconciliation to Instruments of Baird, and Broadbent turned to lin- Technological Domination” (PhD dis- guistics and semiology in their attempt sertation, University of Essex, 1979). to reclaim the architectural qualities The prevailing concepts in all those that render a space “communicative,”2 alternative theses and book titles of a Rykwert and Vesely proposed a turn to scholarly interest, which is essentially history, phenomenology, and hermeneu- shaped and stabilized in the mid-1970s, tics instead (Figure 1). in turn summarize the understanding Thus, in a period when techno- of the contemporaneous disciplinary logical optimism and instrumental crisis offered by the University of Essex rationalism dominated the field, the MA program: functionalism represents a University of Essex MA program aimed crisis of meaning in architecture, whose to reinscribe architectural history and roots lie in the use of geometry and theory in the tradition of the humanities, number as instruments of technological and the debates around the multifarious Figure 1. Alberto Pérez-Gómez’s Architecture and domination. legacy of the Enlightenment—as well as the Crisis of Modern Science in the crossroads of When Rykwert and Vesely set up its discontents. Rykwert’s “Theoretical Dalibor Vesely’s phenomenological and Joseph the University of Essex MA program Literature of Architecture before Rykwert’s historically oriented teachings at the University of Essex MA Program, in the context of in 1968, they were in fact offering 1800” module proposed a close read- the wider 1970s debates for meaning and a self- their own perspective on an emerging ing of architectural theories “inevitably reflexive theory for architecture. debate instigated by a new generation centre[d] on the Italian treatises of the of British architectural theorists, crit- XVIth and the XVIIth centuries, and historical context of its production. ics, and historians. Irrespectively of their the French literature of the XVIIIth,” In the final instance, what came to subsequently divergent approaches, as it moved forward in time toward be globally known as Architecture and Charles Jencks, George Baird, Geoffrey the Enlightenment. It aimed to estab- the Crisis